


My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

by metonymy



Category: Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 21:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17009445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy
Summary: Nicholas Tooley has a bad feeling about Will's new patroness.





	My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liseuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liseuse/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, liseuse! 
> 
> For all readers: this is not meant to portray any accuracy regarding the chronology of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, the identity of the Dark Lady, the composition at any one time of the King's Men playing company, English geography, or any other historical facts.

"Did you see her?" Nick asked under his breath. It was crowded back here, and there were dozens of folk on the other side of that partition. This play was a popular one, for all that it was several years old; it had romance and bawdy parts and magic, and it was easy enough to tell the outline of the story. Some people even preferred the lighthearted stories to the ones that ended in blood. 

"See who?" Robin asked, fiddling with his costume. Not that it needed it. Not that anyone could tell what a fairy messenger was meant to look like. He never would have admitted to nerves, Nick knew, but it was Robin's first time in the role and that was enough to make any man both excited and sick to his stomach.

"Her," Nick repeated. "You'd know if you had. Will's lady." 

Robin arched a brow. "Not Mistress Anne or our fair queen, I take it." 

Nick gave up and dragged Robin to the wings, just out of sight of most of the crowd, and jerked his chin up. A woman sat in the stalls, her bearing more regal even than Queen Bess at her most high and mighty. Her hair was dark, but it seemed to have the gleam of garnets where the light caught it. Her garments were hard to see at this distance but gave the distinct impression of being terribly rich. And she was not so beautiful, exactly. But it was hard to look away from her. 

"Are you so sure she's Will's lady?" Robin asked, his voice barely a burr in Nick's ear. 

"Have you read any of those damned sonnets he keeps leaving about?" Nick answered. 

"You can read?" Robin's voice had not changed, but Nick knew Armin well enough to know when he was being an ass, and it wasn't worth scuffling with him when the play was about to begin. 

The woman looked at them. Nick would have sworn she was too far away to see them, especially at her angle and in the shadows of the wings, but it was like being a mouse caught under the gaze of a hawk. He could feel Robin go still beside him.

And then there was a hand clapping on each of their shoulders and drawing them back, and Burbage hissing at both of them to take their damned places, was this their first time in a play or would they prefer he kick both of them out and a pair of stable boys take their roles, and the moment was lost. But the whole time Nick was on stage he felt the weight of that gaze upon him, the dark eyes in the pale face and the hair a dark crown above.

After the human lovers were united in their proper pairs and the fairy royals were once again in accord, after the mechanicals' play was done, Robin stood in the center of the stage. 

"If we shadows have offended," he began, and Nick watched him from the wings once again. Armin was good - very good. Not just at the comedy. Here there was a resonance to his voice, seeming to come from something greater than his own narrow chest, like it echoed within a cavern instead of the Globe's familiar round. 

Nick didn't have to look to know that woman was watching Robin now. 

When they had retired to the pub, Nick almost expected to see her there; the feeling when she did not appear was a mixture of disappointment and relief. And then he had to laugh at himself, because he was as much a fool as Robin, expecting a fine noble lady to join a pack of poor players carousing in a seedy tavern into the wee hours of the morning. 

The hours spooled out, rounds bought and toasts drunk in honor of another opening night. Rob and Harry argued over a bit of business from the scene with Bottom in Titania's bower with Will looking sagely on and giving precedence to neither. Nick was considering taking his leave when he saw the lad slip in. The boy carried a folded square of paper that almost glowed in the dim light; it was likely worth more than all the clothes on his back. He scanned the room and slipped through the crowd to the players' table where Will sat, and after a whispered conversation he handed Will the note and vanished into the crowd. Nick leaned forward and caught a glimpse of the seal before Will broke it; it looked the color of old blood, with an intricate design he couldn't make out. 

"A love note?" Harry asked, craning his neck. Will scanned the letter and smiled, stroking his beard. 

"An invitation. For all of us, to a noble household. To perform selections of the play." 

Nick was still trying to read the note; from his seat he couldn't quite read the writing but it seemed to be in a peculiar hand, blocky and small. 

"And who's our patron?" 

"Lady Medeous," Will said, folding his note and tucking it inside his sleeve. "She saw us tonight and was much pleased." 

Nick expected him to leave then and there, but Will was still seated in the tavern when Nick took his leave. 

"Didn't I tell you?" Nick said to Robin, as they wended their way home. "She's bringing us to her house. That will cost her dear."

"It will cost, aye," Robin said, steering Nick around a puddle. "But who will pay?"

The lady's abode was outside of London, far enough that the stink of the city and the river were replaced by the scent of growing fields and the occasional horse's shit. Nick drowsed in the cart with the properties, the sound of horse hooves lulling him into a slumber. He woke with a start as the cart stopped. 

The manor was grand, but far grander were the woods that crept around the house, crowding close as courtiers to a monarch's robes. Nick would have sworn there were no forests so dense within a day's ride of London. The house itself looked new, the wattle and daub between the framing gleaming white with paint and capped by a roof of stone instead of thatch. Someone let out a low whistle. 

Servants spilled out of the house, coming to take the horses of the riders and help carry the properties and trunks inside. Nick found himself lugging a trunk with a slender youth with dark hair and brown skin. "Don't worry," he said, "it's merely cloth and glass jewels. Nothing precious."

The youth did not answer. All of the servants were silent, in fact, and the house itself seemed to swallow sound. Nick deposited his load and went back for another, but he was stopped by Will. "Hold, Tooley. We're to be presented to our hostess and her guests."

"What, without a wash first?" Nick asked. It was half confusion and half jest; they were all over dust from the road, but Will was also known to be fastidious about matters of dress and barbering. 

"At once, Nicholas," Will said. He wouldn't meet Nick's eyes, merely clapped him on the shoulder and moved on. Nick trailed after him, his unease growing with every step. 

Lady Medeous was as striking as Nick remembered. More, even, in a smallish room where he could see her clearly, her height taller than most of the men in the company, her skin white and her hair that strange color like blood spilled on velvet. And her companions were just as fearful and wonderful to behold; tall, pale, stern people to the last, men and women alike with long hair and garments that seemed rich but terribly out of fashion and names that would not stay in Nick's mind after the moment of their speaking. 

"I mislike this place," Nick said to Robin later, as his mate helped him lace up his gown.

"We're in it now," Robin said, tugging the skirt around Nick's hips and resettling his padding. "Your liking it makes no difference."

Nick caught at Robin's hands, clasping them for a moment. He wanted to say that it wasn't him, that the house disliked them - or something in it. But there was no way he could think to say it that didn't sound mad. "Just - Robin, look at me." 

Robin's eyes were wary behind his paint. But he met Nick's eyes for a long moment, fingers twining with his. "I shall restore amends," he said at last, his mouth quirking in a smile. "Will wrote that. And you trust Will, don't you?"

"I suppose I must," Nick said. If they delayed much longer they'd have hell to pay. He let go of Robin's hands and caught him by the back of the head, leaning in until their foreheads knocked together. "Just keep close, will you? Whatever happens."

"Whatever happens." Robin pulled back and brushed his fingers over Nick's forehead. "I swear, Nick Tooley, we're not done yet."


End file.
